A semiconductor chip is mounted on an external substrate or circuit device after undergoing a package process. A semiconductor chip package is mounted on a substrate, such as a printed circuit board (PCB), together with other semiconductor components and constitutes a semiconductor module that performs a peculiar function.
When a plurality of semiconductor chip packages are mounted on one substrate, the area of the substrate is increased, and an additional electric wiring needs to be formed in the plural for signal transmission between the semiconductor chip packages or signal transmission with other components. Thus, a manufacturing process is complicated, the size of the entire semiconductor module is further increased, a signal transmission distance is increased, and thus a high-speed operation cannot be easily performed.
FIG. 1 is a view of a memory module 10 on which individual semiconductor chips, in particular, memory chips are mounted. Memory chips or memory packages 20 are disposed on a PCB substrate 12 to be spaced apart from each other by a predetermined distance together with an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) 30, a passive element 42, such as a capacitor, and a resistor 44, and a connector terminal 50 for external connection is formed at one side of the PCB substrate 12.
In the memory module 10, a plurality of memory chips 20 and components are horizontally disposed on the PCB substrate 12 and then are electrically and mechanically connected to each other using a method, such as soldering, and are fixed. Since individual semiconductor memory packages 20 are horizontally disposed to be spaced apart from each other by a predetermined distance, the area of the PCB substrate 12 is increased, which causes an increase in the size and weight of the memory module 10. Also, in order to implement high-performance signal transmission between the components and the memory chips 20 that are horizontally disposed, a metal wiring with multiple layers (6 to 10 layers) should be formed on the PCB substrate 12. Thus, a manufacturing process is complicated and manufacturing costs increase.
As portable electronic devices have been rapidly developed and the sizes of electronic products decrease, various types of semiconductor systems including a semiconductor memory module should satisfy thin and light-weight conditions, and a technical demand for optimizing an arrangement design of components so as to perform high-speed signal transmission is increased.